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Topic: Is is possible to bake NY-style-ish on a pizza disc? (Read 3744 times)

Ok, summer's here and I don't want a 550°+ oven a-BTU-sing my sense of comfort. I found some whole milk mozzarella so ridiculously priced that I should've gone to the ER and had them run a rape kit on me. I've got KASL and KABF, vital wheat gluten, IDY and ADY. And I'd like to bake it on this http://www.pizzatools.com/Hex_Quik-Disks/30885/subgrouping.htm pizza disk so I don't have to heat a baking stone. Is this possible? I am looking through the huge number of posts looking for answers but I was hoping that someone who knows could help. I'd like to get some dough started today or tomorrow, if possible.

I've got an old Weber Genesis grill, I think it was the original model of that line. Made out of stone with dials carved from dinosaur teeth. Works well though, can get 550-600° if it's not cold outside. I've also got an Emile Henry rectangular baking stone that will work on the grill, if that helps.

Jay, I don't really see discs or pans being viable for NY style. They just can't come anywhere close to a respectable bake time in a home oven.

Do you have an outdoor grill?

If not, then my suggestion would be to ramp up up the oil and go with an American Style/Papa John's clone.

Papa John's, Domino's, and Pizza Hut are the reasons I started looking how to make my own pizza. I'm not a fan although PJ's is the best of that trio, imo.I'd rather use my pricey whole milk mozz (which is made from 100% inkjet printer ink, apparently) for Chicago thin crust or some other use.

From my reading here, Scott is a true defender of NY style pizza, a purist. I'm not trolling here so please don't get that argument going. Thanks to this site I've made pretty good Chicago Thin and Deep Dish pizza and Detroit style. Now I want to see if I can do anything with NY style. I'm on the verge of getting that Blackstone pizza oven. I figure for the winter I can get a Baking Steel to do a NY pizza.Ah, yeah...an outdoor oven won't strain the a/c and keep cooling costs down over the summer...yeah, that's the ticket. Isn't that right, Dear? (just practicing).

There are a couple of reasons to use a screen or pan. The first is to enable you to make a pizza without having a calzone. The second is to allow you to make a pizza larger than your peel. I do not know many home pizza makers with a peel larger than 14" and most are 12" . The third is if you don't use a stone. I do not use a stone, do not have a peel larger than 14" and cook my 16" NY style just fine on a screen at 550°.

I do prefer screens to pans or those like you show, when using a pan,I use oil (usually mustard or chili oil) to fry the dough for something a tad different than NY.

There are a couple of reasons to use a screen or pan. The first is to enable you to make a pizza without having a calzone. The second is to allow you to make a pizza larger than your peel. I do not know many home pizza makers with a peel larger than 14" and most are 12" . The third is if you don't use a stone. I do not use a stone, do not have a peel larger than 14" and cook my 16" NY style just fine on a screen at 550°.

I do prefer screens to pans or those like you show, when using a pan,I use oil (usually mustard or chili oil) to fry the dough for something a tad different than NY.

Yeah, my peel is only 12 inches, so I've used my disk to launch 14 inch pies. Would you mind posting your dough recipe and workflow? I'm assuming that you already have this as a file, I wouldn't ask you to type up an opus.

Is it possible to make a New York "style" pizza using a pizza disk or screen? You betcha! You could probably make it on a block of wood too. The operative word being "STYLE". To a purist, the answer is emphatically NO! but we are not talking "New York" pizza (authentic), we are talking New York style. Just what is a New York style pizza??? There in lies the issue. The word style is open to interpretation. Just a couple of meanings are: In the manner of, or in the appearance/likeness of. Even these definitions leave a lot to the imagination. A number of years ago I served as an expert witness in a high profile legal case where this exact issue was highly debated and I can tell you first hand that there were literally thousands of exhibits showing things made in the "style" of which really didn't look a whole lot like the item it was made in the "style" of. For example, with a pizza, if the crust is soft and chewy like a N.Y. pizza, that would qualify it to be said to be a New York "style" pizza, never mind all of the other features of the pizza.Just bringing another view point to the table.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

scott123

Is it possible to make a New York "style" pizza using a pizza disk or screen? You betcha! You could probably make it on a block of wood too. The operative word being "STYLE". To a purist, the answer is emphatically NO! but we are not talking "New York" pizza (authentic), we are talking New York style. Just what is a New York style pizza??? There in lies the issue. The word style is open to interpretation. Just a couple of meanings are: In the manner of, or in the appearance/likeness of.

Tom, we're not lawyers in a courtroom stretching the meanings of words as far as they can possibly be stretched in an effort to find legal loopholes. If it could help them win their case, a lawyer could show you a thousand exhibits why 2+2=5. For those that are the least bit familiar with pizza, 'NY style' pizza = NY pizza. The term 'style' was introduced not as a means of producing a looser definition (as it's occasionally used by lawyers for some commercial foods), but for geographical purposes. If you're making the exact same pizza that they make in NY, but you're in, say Des Moines, you wouldn't advertise 'NY pizza,' but rather 'NY style pizza.'

If you start playing lawyer games with the term 'style,' then the manner in which these sacred foods are defined, foods that millions of people have helped to define, becomes meaningless. Once you say that 'NY style' can basically mean anything, it's the tower of Babel, it's confounding speech, it's chaos- and you can kiss this cultural treasure goodbye.

Scott,I am truly in awe of your laser-like focus on maintaining the purity of NY pizza. Let me apologize in advance if I ever offend you with one of my offhand goofy comments. I'm just trying to make tasty pizza and maybe make someone smile.

Scott- You know it's funny but I take your analogy in the exact opposite way. I like the interpretation better that we aren't all lawyers in courtroom- out to sue somebody or pass judgements, we aren't out to define black and white or right and wrong. Multiple interpretations in life should be allowed while in the courtroom the law is law and there is no other. Now I know next time I'm driving in the car listening to music and someone says "wow this sounds a lot like the style of Queens' music," I will reply "nope, it's not Queen, so it's not their style because it isn't "=" to Queen. No Freddie Mercury, no Queen." Haha

Hope you know I'm just giving you a hard time. Sometimes people have different interpretations.

The zealous defense of "New York pizza" is just so New York. I guess there is a California style of pizza, but I couldn't imagine working up any energy for a zealous defense of "California style pizza". Basically I guess "California style pizza" would be anything made at the California Pizza Kitchen. No wonder we don't defend it! Good for New Yorkers that they have something worth defending. All done with that signature pugnacity too, just as it should be.

I agree with Tom's use of the term "style" and its application. The word has a common dictionary meaning and while it is arguable that the term covers the geographical example that scott123 gave, I do not see that term limited to geography.

But rather than engaging in semantic arm wrestling on the meaning and application of the word "style", I'd rather tackle the question Jay (redox) raised on the use of the hex disk from PizzaTools.com. What is important to know is that the hex disk is intended to be a direct screen replacement, with the capability of producing the same results as achieved using a screen. Tom discusses this point in his PMQ Think Tank post at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10662&p=73609&hilit=#p73609. It is also important to know that both the pizza screen and the hex disk were developed for use with conveyor ovens. So, whether Jay uses a screen or hex disk in his home oven, he won't achieve the same results as might be achieved using a conveyor oven but his results using his home oven should be quite comparable. But neither will emulate a NY style pizza as baked in a deck oven. To get closer to that objective, he would have to use a stone or steel plate. But assuming that he uses a NY style dough formulation with his hex disk in his home oven, including the NY style dough formulation that scott123 uses and writes about, what is Jay to call his pizza? I would personally call it a "NY style", using the common definition of the word "style".

scott123

Now I know next time I'm driving in the car listening to music and someone says "wow this sounds a lot like the style of Queens' music," I will reply "nope, it's not Queen, so it's not their style because it isn't "=" to Queen. No Freddie Mercury, no Queen."

Jeff, do you know how many times I've heard people talk about 'NY style pizza?' I've been talking about pizza for 30 years, and that's probably incorporated tens of thousands of conversations. Do you know how many times I've heard the phrase pizza 'in the style of NY?' Twice- once in this thread and another time when this 'style' question was brought up previously.

Just say it out loud. Pizza in the style of New York. Don't you feel the least bit ridiculous saying it? It's almost like 'Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?' It's a pretentious and pedantic expression that a NYer would laugh at. 'NY style pizza' is a single entity. It cannot be disconstructed. "In the style of" is appropriate for many areas (such as in the style of Queen or in the style of the Baroque period), and if you're a music, history or art student, go crazy. But NY, Neapolitan, Trentonian, Detroit, and, sure, even Chicagoan pizza lovers aren't/have never viewed pizza from this scholastic perspective. None of these tens of millions of people is writing their doctoral thesis on pizza.

'NY style pizza' is as much a single entity as 'Queen' (and probably as renowned and beloved). Imagine, if you will, hearing someone that sounds like Queen on the radio, only to find out that they've named themselves 'Queen.' How would you feel about that?

I'm all for experimentation, for variation, to go where no man has gone before. Just don't redefine our culture by using our name. There's over 30,000 towns and cities in the U.S. Do your thing- improvise- sing your own song, play your own tune- make it as similar or as different to the classics as you want, but, at the end of the day, use your own city to name your pizza, not mine.

scott123

Basically I guess "California style pizza" would be anything made at the California Pizza Kitchen. No wonder we don't defend it!

I defend California Pizza all the time...

indirectly Sure, Italian grandmothers have probably been putting anything in their pantries on pizza for centuries, but, somewhere along the line, toppings started being viewed from an extremely limited perspective, and Spago took that small thinking and obliterated it. CPK, imo, is as Californian as Dominos is Brooklynian. I probably am not the most vocal defender of pineapple and ham pies, but, unlike great numbers of my NY brethren, I go to great lengths to defend anyone's right to put anything on a pizza. If that's not defending the spirit of Spago, of California pizza, I don't know what is